Time For a Break
by trust-me-im-a-shadowhunter
Summary: After the events of City of Lost Souls. Izzy, Simon, Jace, Clary and Alec go on a well-deserved holiday.
1. Chapter 1

It took three days for them to persuade their parents it was, in fact, a good idea. Mayrse nearly changed her mind again, but after muffled undertones from Isabelle including the words "Magnus," "definitely broken up," and "hasn't left his room," she agreed - still rather reluctantly. There were a couple of conditions, of course.

1. No sharing rooms between couples.

2. Only go for the 4 days agreed on.

3. NO DEMON HUNTING.

Jace added a signature eye-roll to the last condition, but given that the angelic fire still burned within him, he knew Mayrse was right. Eventually, the five of them - Alec, Isabelle, Jace, Clary and Simon - jumped into a borrowed truck from Luke and set off for Long Island, bringing with them the cheesiest 80's music Clary could find in her mom's collection. Alec drove, his blue eyes matching the cloudless expanse of sky above them. Isabelle called shotgun, already dressed for the beach in a scarlet bikini and mini skirt. Simon, Jace and Clary crowded together in the back, Simon and Clary singing along tunelessly to the various sounds of Queen memorised since they were children, while Jace hummed along to the songs as he learned them, perfectly in tune.

It took them half an hour to escape the city, by which time most of Queen had been exhausted. The final song, of course, was Bohemian Rhapsody. To Clary's surprise, Jace and Isabelle knew the words to this one, and Alec broke his poker face to hum along a little as well. The final line, Jace decided, was the greatest bonding experience they'd had as a group ever, when completely unplanned they morphed into a 5-part harmony. Cheers and whoops echoed throughout the car as they sped ever closer to their well-deserved holiday.

"What do you mean, you forgot to book us into a hotel?" Clary's red hair shone bright as a dying star in the setting sun as she squared up to Isabelle.

"Geez, Clary, relax, it's not like they'll turn us away - it's not even tourist season," Simon pointed out. She turned to glare at him.

"That's not the point, Si. The point is that we are completely unprepared!" Angrily she stalked off to the golden sands across the road, silently cursing herself for losing it like that. She twisted her fingers around, looking out at the sparkling mirror of ocean ahead, trying to calm down.

Just then, a large ball of golden hair and eyes grabbed Clary around the waist and started running towards the ocean. Shrieking, Clary tried to stop Jace, but almost before she started laughing they plunged into the cold water. Rising up again, hair and clothes clinging to her body, Clary let out a brilliant, sparkling laugh.

"Come on," Jace yelled back to the others, "there's plenty of room in here!"

Isabelle took a running start, black hair streaming in the wind, and cannonballed right into Clary, the two girls falling into the water. Standing up, Clary reached to hug Isabelle, whispering "Sorry," in her ear. The other girl smiled back, and turned back to her older brother.

"Alec! Get in here, it's amazing!"

Offering a half-smile, he started to back away, but Simon, grinning wickedly, grabbed him by the waist and raced with the strength and speed of a vampire into the water, carrying Alec with him. Blubbering, Alec glared at Simon momentarily, before starting a violent splash war that involved everyone.

By the time they were tired out, the sun was setting. The hotel did, in fact, have two spare rooms, and the five of them collapsed, exhausted, on the beds.


	2. Chapter 2

The next day, Clary woke up to a painful amount of sunlight, a birds-nest of unbrushed, salt-saturated hair and a ridiculously chipper Isabelle.

"What time is it?" Clary groaned. She awkwardly stretched, and started to run her fingers through her hair before they snagged about 3 inches from her scalp.

"Nine," Isabelle responded, hunting around in her suitcase for what Clary suspected was a pair of wedge heels as high as the Chrysler Building. She had already showered and dressed, and once again Clary felt self-conscious in the face of Isabelle's obvious beauty. "If it makes you feel better, nobody else is up yet, so if you shower quickly we can probably be first down to breakfast." Clary groaned again, and practically fell out the bed, her red hair falling over her head like a waterfall.

Isabelle rolled her eyes.

* * *

By the time the boys got downstairs to the breakfast buffet, it was ten o' clock. Isabelle and Clary sat laughing their heads off at something over their bowls of cereal, and Simon's non-existent heart gave a twinge. He had hardly ever seen Izzy laughing given the seriousness of their situation right now, and he was struck by how beautiful she was when she laughed, how her eyes shank down to nothing and her nose crinkled in that adorable way and she threw her head back with the force of it. He smiled hopelessly at her, enjoying the sight of his girlfriend happy.

Jace's skin was burning. Not in the usual way of sunburn - although his shoulders were a tinge too red as well - but in the way of divine fire since Clary had stabbed him with the sword. It was almost like an itch - more annoying than painful. Of course, he had the feeling that if he scratched this itch, it might end up significantly worse for those around him. Almost reflexly, he turned to look at Clary. Her hair, still wet from the shower, seemed like a living entity this morning, and her green eyes sparkled like the sunshine on the waves outside. Grabbing his bowl of Coco Pops, Jace strolled over and plonked down next to her, slyly intertwining the fingers of his right hand with her left under the table. He didn't see the minuscule wince of pain that crossed Clary's face for a nanosecond.

Alec did, however. He was at the head of the table, slumped over his bowl of muesli, and he saw Clary's look of pain and the way Simon looked at his sister. He saw how these two newcomers to the group showed their love in different ways; how Simon used the puppy-dog look to great advantage as long as he wasn't seen, so he wouldn't be embarrassed; how Clary gritted her teeth and ignored the heat radiating from Jace's body so she could hold his hand. He already knew how his siblings expressed love - Izzy, he knew, was hiding a smile beneath her poker face, while his parabatai was muttering various sarcastic remarks to Clary under his breath. It made him think about how he had expressed love to Magnus - Alec knew he had smiled more, been more relaxed and simultaneously more terrified...

"No."

He looked up with a start. Isabelle, Jace and Clary stared disapprovingly at him.

"No, what?"

"No, you are NOT moping around for the rest of this holiday," Isabelle reiterated.

"I am not moping," Alec said. "I am not a moper, I am not moping. I am merely sad. Sad that I screwed things up with Magnus."

"We know," Clary started, reaching her free hand across the table to him, "but you can't let this drag you down so much."

"Clary's right," Jace chimed in. "It's been two weeks and all I've seen of you has been either at meals or training."

"We just wanna help, but we can't while you're still _moping_," Izzy finished.

"I'm slightly confused," Simon whispered in her ear.

"Alec and Magnus broke up," Isabelle hissed in an undertone.

"What?!"

"_Anyway_," Jace continued, "we're thinking about renting some rollerblades and skating along the bay. Non-optional."

Alec tried to protest, but he knew his little brother and sister had him beat. He also knew that it would take more than some rollerblading to mend his broken heart.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Even with his vampire strength, speed and agility, Simon was the clumsiest rollerblader in the group. He knew he didn't have a hope in hell of being better than the Lightwoods and Jace - years of Shadowhunter training was behind their gracefulness - but he had thought he would at least be slightly better than Clary, given that he had the aforementioned strength, speed and agility of a vampire. But evidently the few short months she'd had training the shadowhunter way had made their mark, and, like the other three teens, she was unbelievably good at something Simon knew she had never done before.

Simon, on the other hand, was ridiculously uncoordinated, nearly crashing into every object that came in his way: trees, park benches, the sidewalk, and, of course, Isabelle. Whenever he was about to trip over the kerb, Izzy grabbed his hand and pulled him bodily to her side, flashing a wicked grin in his direction - if he careened towards a tree, she playfully bopped his side with her hip and he glided out the way. The first time Simon crashed into her, she didn't realise it was an accident - Izzy made no attempt to stop him and they landed on the grey sidewalk, a tangle of limbs and rollerblades.

Alec led the group, absent-mindedly skating along the waterfront. His hands were tucked behind his back, his eyes carrying him far away, back to a time when he wouldn't wake up alone but instead open his blue eyes to a certain gold pair that had pupils like a cats . . .

Just then Simon, who had been skating faster to keep up with Isabelle, finally tripped, fell, and crashed to the ground, frantically grabbing onto Clary to break his fall, who dug her nails into Jace's bare arm to slow herself down, who yelled in pain and accidentally kicked Isabelle, who lost her balance and pulled Alec down by his leg, who loudly swore and nearly hit his head against the asphalt of the sidewalk.

When Simon looked up again, he saw four angry Shadowhunters glaring at him.

"Sorry," he offered, knowing that if he was human his cheeks would be a violent shade of bright red.

Jace rolled his eyes.

* * *

After everybody was back on their skates, they decided to go to the nearest coffee shop, rather than risk Simon causing another disaster. They piled into the deserted yet cheerful place, and squeezed into a booth that was surely meant for three, yet somehow managed to fit all five of them. Jace was at the end of the booth, his burning arm hanging lazily over Clary's bare shoulders. Clary was next to Alec, who had got a little scrape of his cheek from the fall, and his sister nestled next to him, in another bikini, this time lime green. Simon was at the other end of the booth, painfully aware both of the fact that Isabelle was right next to him in a bikini top and short jean skirt, and her older brother was right next to her. He didn't dare fling his arm over her shoulders like Jace was doing to _his _girlfriend, so he settled for sneakily holding her hand under the table.

Clary caught the attention of the teenaged waiter, bizarrely wearing sunglasses indoors, and laughing, half-yelled, "Can we get three Cokes and a lemonade, please?" The bored boy stalked off into what was presumably the kitchen, and Clary was suddenly very aware that pleasant though it was for Jace to wrap his arm around her, it was burning way too much for her to be able to cope. She reached down to get her bag, and with a magician's flourish, pulled out a dark blue hoodie. She grinned at Jace, and struggled into it, nearly punching him in the nose.

The waiter came back out, and Alec, once again, was the first to notice what the two loved-up couples hadn't noticed. The waiter had no drinks in his hands, and had taken off his sunglasses.

"Shit," he whispered. "Demon."


	4. Chapter 4

Jace, Clary, Simon and Isabelle all snapped their heads up at the same time. The demon looked back at them, a malevolent grin on its face. At the same moment, the five of them realised where their steles and seraph blades were - back at the hotel, tucked away under the mattress of the third bed in the girl's room.

Clary could almost hear her heart pounding, while her breathing increased rapidly. Yes, in the weeks with Sebastian and the Jace-who-wasn't-Jace she had grown to love battle, but there was a difference between battling a demon while armed and being trapped in a café with no way of escape or weaponry. Still, she quietly reached to grab the knife nearest to her. 'Better safe than sorry', she thought to herself. Unobtrusively, Jace shifted so he was in front of her, and she noticed for the first time that he was glowing - noticeably glowing, at that. She brushed a finger against his forearm, and let out a little gasp - he was burning hot.

At that noise, as if waiting for a signal, the demon lunged towards them, no longer in human form, but looking like some sort of gigantic worm, with eyes like fire and fangs at least as long as Clary's arm, and about as thick as her neck.

"Get down!" Jace yelled, and in a desperate attempt he swung Clary's bag at, and then, _through_ the demon's skull. But the instant Jace's skin touched the demon, it cried out and crashed to the floor, flailing wildly. Where his arm had bumped the demon's head there was now a white-hot mark, making a horrible singeing sound.

"It's the angelic fire, Jace!" Isabelle shouted. "Keep touching it!"

Without even looking back, Jace hopped over the side of the booth and slammed his hand onto its head. The creature screamed even shriller, and it recklessly thrashed around, it's tail destroying the breakfast bar around it.

"DUCK!" Clary screamed as the tail swung towards their booth. She jammed herself between the table and the cushioned bench, her upper body hanging upside down off the seat. Her right arm was pinned between Alec's body and the seat, and through her curtains of red hair she spotted Isabelle bodily on the floor under Simon, who was half-under, half-exposed like Clary. They exchanged a glance, and the demons tail smashed the backs of the booth where they had been paralysed two seconds before to smithereens.

Suddenly, a last high, piercing screech ripped through the air from Jace's general direction, and the demon vanished.

* * *

"But I just don't understand how we were so completely ambushed by that demon."

The five of them were slowly walking along the deserted beach, trying to avoid attention. Despite Jace defeating the demon just by touching it, the beast had put up quite a fight, and his arms and chest were covered in cuts, and one large bruise right over his heart. When the others first realised the attack was over, Clary had run over to see him lying on the floor, his clothes covered in his own blood and demon ichor, gasping for breath. Twenty minutes later, and he was back to making his usual sarcastic remarks.

"Well, _maybe _if Isabelle had bothered to look at her necklace, we wouldn't have been quite so unprepared." Alec turned and looked pointedly at his little sister, who bristled suddenly.

"Look, we were having a good time, I was buzzed anyway, I just didn't notice it, okay?" She glared at him, and sharply turned around, flicking her hair over her shoulders.

"Well, the main thing is nobody got hurt," Simon said after an awkward silence.

Jace pointedly cleared his throat.

"Okay, nobody got hurt apart from Jace. And honestly, all you really need on that is an _iratze_ and you'll be fine. It's not like we're going to tell Mayrse after she explicitly said no demon hunting. Right?"

The other four stopped.

"How do you know about the _iratzes_?" Izzy asked.

"Oh, come on, Iz, it's not like I'm blind. I _do_ notice when people carve runes into their skin and suddenly magically get healed."

"_Really_? I thought you just ignored us high-and-mighty Nephilim most of the time..."

As Simon and Isabelle chatted in front, Alec suddenly realised he hadn't been obsessively thinking about his ex-boyfriend for over three hours. And while he knew his beat-up heart was nowhere near being fixed, Alec also knew that today's distraction - dangerous though it was - had maybe stuck one tiny Band-Aid over a crack in the crumbling monument he had for a heart. He smiled, for the first time since - well, since the break-up, really. He slung his left arm over his golden-haired little brother. Jace, noticing the smile, grinned rakishly at Clary and grabbed at her hand, holding onto it tightly. She ignored the low-lying pain, and smiled back at her boyfriend, somehow managing to rest her head on his shoulder and walk at the same time, knowing how lucky she was that he hadn't died all those times before right now. Izzy and Simon fell back to catch up with the group hand in hand, and Izzy wrapped her right arm around her brothers waist.

And so, slung all together like a five-headed, ten-legged monster of love, they walked across the midday beach back to the hotel.

**A/N I'm not gonna lie, I've considered ending this here. However, there are still two more trip days to get through. So, if you want me to continue, just leave a review saying so. Thanks!**


	5. Chapter 5

Jace was perched on the edge of the bed, trying his best not to fall asleep on the white sheets before he cleaned himself up, while Clary sat in front of him, drawing an _iratze _rune over the bruise near his heart. With a shared glance between them they both remembered the last time Jace had had a rune there, and tenderly Clary rubbed her hand over his chest.

"There," she smiled, "that's all of it healed." He stared into her green eyes with his gold ones, and gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Good," he murmured. "Well, I need to take a shower to get this stuff off, but...would you still be here when I come out?" Jace could feel the nervousness pooling in his stomach, hoping they could put what happened during their time as Team Evil behind them.

Clary smiled. "Yeah, I'll be here when you're done."

They kissed quietly and quickly, and Jace padded into the little bathroom to get his shower over with as quickly as possible. Left behind in the room, Clary stretched and collapsed backwards onto the bed, utterly exhausted from the emotional strain of the day so far. She flicked her hair out from under her neck, and it fell over the side of the bed in a graceful red waterfall. Staring up at the uninspiring white ceiling, Clary could hear the water pouring, and it reminded her of the way rain sounded from inside her house, when she was still little and believed the fairy tales Jocelyn so desperately tried to avoid telling her.

She was tired...so tired. 'Stay up, Jace'll be out the shower soon, stay UP!' The little voice in her mind was yelling. Surely it wouldn't hurt to close her eyes for a second...they were so heavy...

When Jace came out the shower, a towel loosely wrapped around his waist, he was greeted with the love of his life curled up sound asleep on the bed. His heart leapt slightly at the sight of Clary's face, unworried and untroubled in sleep, and pulling on his boxers, Jace curled up behind her, the heat off his body warming her up.

Eventually he fell asleep, wrapped up in her love for him.

* * *

Isabelle was idly lying on her bed, half-wrapped up in the duvet, when she heard a quick knock on the door. When she opened it, an extremely awkward Simon who had been leaning against the door fell into her arms and accidentally kissed her collarbone, before straightening up and frantically clearing his throat.

"Are you okay?" he asked, a tender look of concern on his face.

"What do you mean?" Izzy frowned. Did he mean just now? Sure, he had stepped on her toe by accident, but apart from that she was fine.

"I mean, after Jace was nearly killed by that demon. I know," he said, holding up his hands to deflect her interruption, "I know he got off fine, and we now know what his secret awesome superpower is, but you must have been at least a little scared. I just...wanted to check you were okay. I kinda know what it's like, nearly losing a sibling. When my sister was ten she accidentally ate some peanuts and she nearly died. I mean, she was fine afterwards, but I know about the fear." He shrugged and looked down, perhaps knowing in his heart he might have gone too far.

But Isabelle ignored his (mostly true) statement about her feelings towards Jace and hugged him instead. It took him a second to realise she wasn't going to yell at him, before he wrapped his arms around her and drank in the scent of her hair, and beneath that, her blood. His fangs popped out at the smell, and Simon was suddenly quite aware he hadn't fed in about two weeks. Isabelle being Isabelle, noticed the fangs straight off and smiling seductively drew him towards her bed.

"Izzy," he started, "what if what happened with -"

"It won't," she assured him. "I'll be fine, just like I was last time. I promise." He looked into her dark eyes, and recognised she was telling the truth not just to reassure him, but because she wanted this to happen again.

Smiling at her, Simon quietly started kissing her neck.


	6. Chapter 6

Alec woke up the next morning lying on some towels piled up in the bath of the girls room. When he walked into his room yesterday after calling Mayrse to assure her everything was fine, he had seen his little brother sound asleep in Clary's arms. Not wanting to either wake Jace up - he just looked so peaceful - or suffer the embarrassment of sleeping in the same room that the morning would surely bring, he had moved into the girl's room, and collapsed on the spare bed that hid their steles and seraph blades from the cleaners. After a few hours sleep, he had woken on the floor, covered in a duvet while his little sister was making out with Simon.

Alec remembered flushing, and silently crawling to the bathroom, praying they wouldn't look down and see him. Once safely hidden there, he had piled up some towels and, surprisingly, fallen back to sleep. It was a blessing, he supposed, that he didn't have to listen to Isabelle and Simon making out. That was all they were doing, he fiercely reminded himself, just...kissing. His sister, his _baby sister_ would never in her LIFE _EVER_ do anything else.

Or at least, that was what he thought until a half-naked Simon Lewis walked into the bathroom.

When Clary and Jace came down for breakfast, they saw that Alec, Izzy and Simon were clearly in the middle of one of the most awkward silences in the history of awkward silences. Simon sat abandoned at one end of the table, twisting his fingers, while Alec and Isabelle were side by side, not even looking at each other. Alec's cheeks were flushed dark pink, and Clary could almost see Izzy's anger radiating off her. In sympathy, Clary went and sat beside Simon, while Jace took the head of the table, not wanting to be seen taking sides between his siblings and his girlfriend.

They sat in continued silence for a long time.

Finally, Clary took the initiative. "Okay, what's going on here? Everything was fine yesterday afternoon when we got back here, so what's happened between then and-"

"Alec fell asleep in our room and was too embarrassed to leave when Simon and I...stayed the night, to be evasive," Isabelle blurted out, "and now he's mad because he caught Simon half-naked in the bathroom." Simon swallowed awkwardly, and Alec looked like if he _could_ shoot daggers out his eyes, he definitely would.

"Wait, why didn't you sleep in our room?" Jace asked.

"I...I saw you and Clary asleep. You both looked pretty tired, and it seemed a bit weird to sleep in the same room when you were together, so I went to the girl's room." Alec shrugged. "Of course, I thought it would just be Izzy in there, but obviously I was wrong." And again he shot daggers at Simon.

"Okay, _relax_," Simon said. "There is no need for you to panic. I have not yet been deflowered, although I'm very flattered by everybody's interest in my virginity." He looked straight back at Alec. "You honestly thought I'd try anything when I smelt your blood in the bathroom?"

Alec had the good grace to look at least a little embarrassed.

After a minute, Jace restarted the conversation. "So, why _were _you shirtless in my sister's bedroom?"

"Have _you_ tried lying in a bed fully dressed for 6 hours? It's uncomfortable! I like my body to be fully free when I'm lying next to a girl while not sleeping."

Clary nearly spat out her orange juice.


	7. Chapter 7

After a successful day of doing - well, doing _nothing_, the five of them decided to go out clubbing to celebrate their last night on holiday. The three Shadowhunters - Alec, Isabelle and Jace - had arranged it all, and Clary and Simon were struggling not to panic. While they would trust the Lightwoods with their lives, Simon and Clary were more than apprehensive about their ability to choose a good mundane club. Normally they would've gone to a Downworlder place, but they were all conscious of Mayrse's concern over the (supposed) lack of demon-hunting they had to do, and nobody wanted to break their promise twice.

Clary was back in the girl's room, Isabelle pinning her hair up intricately. She was in her own clubbing clothes this time, a light green crop top that accentuated her eyes and a pair of washed-out denim shorts she'd had since her fourteenth birthday. As always, the Morgenstern ring hung on a chain around Clary's neck, and Isabelle was pinning bobby pins with little bits of diamanté on the end into her hair.

"Do you remember the last time you did this?" Clary saw Izzy's grin reflected behind her in the mirror, and they indulged in the memories.

"You had just joined us," Isabelle reminisced, "and we were all going to Magnus's party to try and convince him to help us-"

"And then Simon got turned into a rat," Clary interjected, "and Jace and I had to go to the hotel and nearly got _killed_ by Raphael Santiago and his gang, before Luke and his pack saved us." She paused. "Do you ever wonder-"

"Do I ever wonder what?"

"Never mind, Izzy, it - it doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does," the other girl said, hopping onto the dresser to face Clary. The redhead sighed in defeat.

"Do you ever wonder," Clary asked, "what would've happened if Simon and I hadn't been at Pandemonium that night? I mean, definitely my mom would've erased my memories again. But...do you reckon Valentine would still have tried to kill us? Would Sebastian have assumed the real Sebastian Verlac's identity? Would-"

"Okay, you _need_ to stop," Isabelle said brusquely. "No one knows what might have been. You need to stop wondering about all the what-ifs and whys and stuff. What happened, happened. And yeah, there's been a shit-ton of bad stuff," Izzy admitted, thinking of Max's death, Jace's time possessed, Simon's vampirism and Alec's heartbreak, "but there's also been tons of good stuff."

"Yeah," Clary smiled, "there has, hasn't there."

"I mean, for one thing," Jace suddenly added from the door, "you had the incredible good fortune to meet my handsome self." Clary jumped and let out a tiny half-scream, Isabelle merely shot a glance in her brother's direction, clearly used to such interruptions.

"And for another," Simon chimed, "Dead Man Walking has gotten a _lot_ more popular since I got vamped-up."

"Why do I go out with you?" Izzy muttered under her breath.

"To borrow the words of someone else," Simon said louder, ignoring Izzy's remark, " 'The way I see it, life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't spoil the good things and make them unimportant.' "

The four of them stood where they were for a moment, pondering Simon's words.

"You know, that would have sounded a lot more impressive if it hasn't come from Doctor Who," Jace observed eventually.

"Nerd love strikes again!" Alec yelled from the boys room.

They laughed, and set out to enjoy themselves for one last night of youth before the day's dawn, bringing maturity and war.

**A/N: Don't fret! This is not the final chapter yet! And yes, Simon's quote is from Doctor Who and is not mine. **


	8. Chapter 8

The bass pounded through the floor, steadily pulsating through the air, punching into Jace, Izzy, Alec, Simon and Clary as they stood at the door, for once slightly hesitant about entering a darkly-lit place. None of them had brought seraph blades this time - they knew they'd never get them past security - but they still had their steles fastened tightly to their waists. After a long minute, Clary blindly reached back for Jace's hand, offered a ridiculously seductive smile towards the half-angel, and drew him deeper into the mundane club. The neon lights swirled and popped above their heads, and they started to dance.

Alec headed over to the bar - that is, if you could call a place that only sold carbonated drinks and non-alcoholic 'Mocktails' a bar. Jace and Izzy had been very careful and chosen an under-18's club, which was more responsible than Alec gave them credit for. He hadn't been looking forwards to casting a 'Hidden Sight' rune on the four of them just so they could get into a club. Admittedly, the choice of under-18's meant there were some thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds running around being annoying, but Alec thought they could live with that. He turned to face the barman.

"Diet Coke, please," he muttered, glancing once at the barman's deep brown eyes before twiddling his thumbs. The man turned around and started fumbling around beneath the bar while Alec scoured the club for his younger siblings. He quickly caught sight of Jace and Clary dancing close to the stage; her ginger hair looked luminously bright in the darkness, while his blond brother pressed close to her, hands protectively grasping her swaying hips. They shared a smile, and seemed to grind closer together.

Alec snapped his head back to the bar quick as a whip. He may have accidentally been a Peeping Tom to his little sister, but he wasn't about to start perving over his adoptive brother as well. Thinking of Isabelle, he looked more closely around him, and he couldn't see her tell-tale black hair or the shimmer of her ruby amulet _anywhere_ in the crowded room. He nodded absent-mindedly to the barman once his drink was bought and, perched on his stool, Alec started searching the room with his eyes for Izzy and Simon.

Isabelle stood pressed against the outside wall of the club, enjoying the coolness against her back and the leverage it gave her in soundly kissing Simon. He was almost holding her in the air, his large hands splayed over her lower ribs and waist, their chests pressed together. When Izzy eventually pulled away, trying to get her breath back, Simon merely started peppering kisses along her jawline, going feather-light when he reached her ear in a way that made her wrap her legs tighter around his narrow hips. She gently tugged on his curly hair, calling his attention back to her with a shiver, and kissed his mouth passionately, while trying to undo enough buttons on Simon's shirt to be able to run her hands across his collarbone and shoulder blades. Eventually, Simon tore himself away while Izzy (maddeningly) continued stroking the delicate hairs on the back of his neck.

"Iz," he whispered, lust darkening his eyes, "are you sure you want to -"

"_Yes_," she interrupted, giving him a smile that was equal parts arousal, frustration and love. "I want to do this, Simon. I really," she murmured, her voice going slightly husky, "_really_ want to." He gulped slightly, his fingers tightening over the silk of her top.

"I kinda meant, do you want to do this _here_?" he asked pointedly. The alley they were in was strewn with empty crisp packets, broken beer bottles and a few multi-coloured pieces of evidence that showed other couples had had the same idea as Simon and Isabelle. "I dunno, I just - don't wanna be a mood-killer, but this isn't exactly the place I had in mind for my first time."

Izzy abruptly stopped drawing small concentric circles in Simon's hair with her fingertips to properly look at her boyfriend, who, she knew, would most definitely be blushing if he still could. "You mean - what you said at breakfast today, that wasn't a joke?"

"No, no, it wasn't," he said, trying to duck out of her piercing gaze.

"So you're -"

"Still a virgin, yes, yes, I think that _might_ have been established by now," Simon cut in.

"Really?" Isabelle's eyes narrowed. "I just thought - with Maia and everything, that, y'know, you and her might have -"

"No, no - God, no!" Simon protested, moving marginally closer to his girlfriend - a move that did not go unnoticed by Isabelle. "Even when I thought we were going out, it was never really like that with Maia, never, I swear."

They smiled at each other.

"So," Izzy smiled, resuming playing with his hair, "where _did_ you have in mind for the Great Deflowering of Simon Lewis? Because there's a nice hotel, just a couple of minutes away, with all of our stuff in it that I think would do pretty nicely."

"This," Simon said, "is why I go out with you."

The man slipped quietly into the club, unobserved by the guard. He knew it was a mundane club; yet still he kept an eye out for a demon or two. Old habits, he supposed. He saw the five teenagers as if in a dream - he couldn't _actually_ see all of them, but their forms and figures were firmly engraved on his brain. Fairchild. Lightwood. Herondale. And, of course, the vampire. He saw Henry's red hair, Cecily's pendant, Will's slender fingers and, in the Lightwood (oddly enough) Will's face. If anybody had looked at the mysterious interloper, beneath his all-consuming robes, they would have seen a look of infinite pain cross his face. He couldn't help it. Try as he might, all Jem (or, rather, Brother Zachariah) could see in Alec Lightwood was his lost _parabatai._

But tonight, hopefully, that would change forever.

**A/N: I KNOW. I'M SORRY. I'VE BEEN ON HOLIDAY. BUT NORMAL SERVICE WILL SOON RESUME. THAT IS ALL.**

**Reviews make me happy! :)**


End file.
